Fire Keeper is absent.

I'm confused. I just returned to the Firelink Shrine and the guy in his cell is dead.I never rescued anyone or helped anyone. I've never encountered a gold knight either.Where was I supposed to encounter the gold knight?---Xbox live - bowl of goulash

he gets out regardless and kills anastacia when you go to blight town.

you need to wait 'til anor londo to invade him and get back her soul so you can revive her.---"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert EinsteinLoL IGN: nvmvoidrays

Okay, so, before you beat the Belfry Gargoyle you can break down a boarded up door and find Knight Lautrec in a jail cell. You can open it with the Mystery Key found down the stairs from where the armored boar was standing down the steps from the church front.

If you open his cell and let him go, he will give you a sunlight medal if you visit the Firelink Shrine before progressing in the game. Big whoop.

If you kill him while he is still in the jail cell, you get a Ring of Favor and Protection. A very nice ring that increases HP and Burden Limit but breaks if you take it off.I think there is more than one, but this is definitely the earliest you can get it.

If you beat the Gargoyles, he gets out on his own.

Freeing him and beating the Gargoyles both result in him heading to Firelink Shrine, it's just that freeing him gets you a sunlight medal.

If you don't kill him before progressing in the game, he will murder the fire keeper of Firelink Shrine, Anastacia, and leave.

You can revive her, if you like. Pick up the Black Eye Orb he left behind and when it resonates later in Anor Londo you can "invade" Lautrec's world and kill him and his bodyguards. He drops a Fire Keeper's Soul, which seems no different from any other Fire Keeper's Soul but do not spend this one, bring it back to Anastacia's body to revive her.

Why go through all that when you can just kill him early for a ring? Well if you invade his world and kill him, you can find a corpse in Anor Londo that has his armor, presumably his own corpse post time-dilation from this realm summoning and invading nonsense.

It's not ultimate armor in any regard but I like it quite a bit.---Is there something about the way I type that makes it sound angry? Maybe it's just something about the way you read.

He's in the church with the belltower gargoyles. On the second floor, if instead of taking up the ladder up towards the gargoyles, you go around, you can reach a spiral staircase (might have to break through a wall), and he's in a cell at the top.

He dropped his sign a bit after I freed him and I summoned him to help me take on the gargoyles. He nearly got killed but we won. It's gonna be a tiny bit harder to have to kill him after what we went through.---US PSN: Number090684Wii No. 7949-4764-9788-5707

I was waiting AGES for the opportunity to avenge her tragic murder! And knowing I could revive her made it all the sweeter. Once I got the firekeeper soul, it wasn't treated any differently than any other, so I spent it at the earliest opportunity. I figured there was either a special soul i missed clicking on, or something would happen automatically at the shrine...

When I learned I screwed up I was inconceivably mad, and regretted it every single time i needed to go to the firelink shrine. Man that was one of the biggest inconveniences in the game.---It could be anything.Because clearly this is the board for orange soda and five dollar foot longs. What on earth did you think he meant, if not the game?